Duty-free, quota-free access: What is it worth?

The European Union (EU) and members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group have been negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) for the past five years. At the end of 2007, 35 ACP states signed interim EPAs under which the EU will remove all tariffs and quotas on its ACP imports, an initiative known as duty-free and quota-free access (DFQF). This Project Briefing asks what would fully implemented DFQF be worth to ACP members and what might it mean for Europe's other import suppliers, consumers and domestic producers of competing goods? It examines only one aspect of EPAs, which are controversial.